"Lu Ze!"
"You came? Take a seat."
At the booming shout, Lu Ze cracked one eye open. Glancing at Sui Yan and Fugui, he let his eye fall shut again.
"You're still sleeping? What's that about?"
"What else am I supposed to do?"
Lu Ze couldn't be bothered to open his eyes. Autumn fatigue — damn it all.
Sui Yan had been about to suggest getting up to train. But when he looked around at the Pokémon, each one working on its own, he swallowed his words.
Hell, they train themselves. If I could sleep, I would too.
His Pokémon were a mixed bag. Charizard and Arcanine had already built their routines. Ralts was putting in genuine effort — it had been itching for a chance at revenge against Farfetch'd. But Torkoal? Barely moved an inch. Torchic was the same way — most of its daily activity was climbing from the ground onto Torkoal's back. And Bellsprout? The king of slacking off. Looked like it was training hard, then vanish, back to doing nothing.
Sui Yan had a headache. If only his Pokémon trained like Lu Ze's.
"Lu Ze~"
"???"
A sudden voice startled both Lu Ze — eyes still shut — and Sui Yan, who had been reaching for a Poké Ball.
"Who's she?"
Lu Ze sidestepped the figure who had been sprinting toward him with arms wide open, then asked coldly.
"Uh… didn't I mention our school got exchange students…"
"So? She's an exchange student?"
Lu Ze pointed at Angola, whose face was now buried in Snorlax's belly, happily rubbing against it.
"Uh, yeah."
Sui Yan nodded, then caught Lu Ze's expression and quickly waved his hands. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I didn't bring her here."
"Then how does she know my name?"
Lu Ze's suspicion was practically spilling out of him.
Sui Yan wronged: "How would I know?"
"Strange."
Lu Ze stopped paying attention to Sui Yan, instead watching Angola with a puzzled expression.
"This girl looks pretty cute, but something's not quite right up here."
Lu Ze tapped his temple with one finger, giving it a little swirl.
"Don't let her fool you — she's strong."
"How strong?"
"Three of Sikong Ling's main battling Pokémon. She crushed all of them."
"Crushed?"
Lu Ze sat up slightly, genuinely surprised. Sikong Ling was the Spark team's golden boy, sure, but his actual strength had long since pulled ahead of Lu Ze and Sui Yan's tier. Right now, Sikong Ling was at best on par with Fugui.
But Fugui was just waiting on his Sliggoo and Kirlia to evolve. Once those two finished evolving, he'd directly step up to Sui Yan's level.
As for Sikong Ling — unless he had a new Pokémon trained all the way to final form, he couldn't touch Fugui.
"Yeah. She has two pseudo-Legendaries, both at final evolution."
Fugui let out a resentful sigh. He thought of his Sliggoo, then of Tim Wynn's Dragonair.
Really — you could die of envy comparing yourself to others.
"Two pseudo-Legendaries at final evolution?"
Now Lu Ze was truly shocked. Just look at Fugui and Tim Wynn to know how rare a fully evolved pseudo-Legendary was.
But now some random exchange girl who'd shown up out of nowhere had two of them.
"Wow, what a cute little girl! What's your name?"
The three people caught mid-conversation turned, only to see Angola had wrapped herself around Xiao Hong in a bear hug.
"What's your name? Why won't you talk?"
Xiao Hong had just gotten back from picking fruit, and was completely bewildered to suddenly find herself in someone's arms. But since Lu Ze was watching, she didn't dare just throw Angola off — so she had no choice but to endure it.
"Gotta say, both their looks are pretty solid."
Lu Ze nodded approvingly.
(If only Tang Yunqin were here too…)
He shook his head the moment that thought crossed his mind.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Lu Ze caught Xiao Hong's pleading look, gave a small nod, then shouted loudly at Angola.
Angola, hearing Lu Ze's voice, suddenly remembered why she'd come here in the first place. She adjusted her clothes, composed herself, and walked calmly toward Lu Ze.
"Oops?"
The composed Angola suddenly went wide-eyed — then pitched forward and face-planted.
Buzz—
Just as Angola had closed her eyes, bracing for a face-first impact, an invisible force caught her, suspending her just above the ground so her face narrowly avoided disaster.
"Hm?"
The pain she'd been bracing for never came. Angola cracked one eye open — only to realize she'd been stopped mid-air.
"Whoa!"
She jumped to her feet immediately, then threw herself at Lu Ze again.
"Didn't expect you to be a Psychic!"
"Can you please behave yourself?"
Having already read Angola's trajectory via Aura, Lu Ze dodged her Body Slam once more, frowning as he asked.
"What's with you?"
Angola pouted,不满的, then held up a Poké Ball at Lu Ze.
"Let's have a battle. If you lose, you marry me!"
"Huh?"
"Ah?"
"Pfft—"
"Hahahahaha~"
The declaration froze all three of them. Then Sui Yan and Fugui looked at Lu Ze and absolutely lost it.
"Haha, Lu Ze, just go ahead and marry her!"
"Get lost!"
Lu Ze had a full-body blackout.
"Dude, when your Chinese is bad, at least don't misuse it. '嫁' is what a woman says to a man. The man says '娶'!"
"Hm?"
Angola tilted her head in confusion, then quickly regained her composure and shot back at Lu Ze: "Impossible! My Chinese is great. My teacher said my accent is so good you can't even tell I'm a foreigner!"
Angola: Smug doesn't even begin to cover it. Let me just lean back for a moment.jpg
Slap!
Slap!
Slap!
The three of them all pressed their palms to their foreheads simultaneously. Lady, 'foreigner' is literally your own word for yourself!
Lu Ze and the others' reaction made Angola waver.
"Fine then — you battle me. If you lose, you're marrying me!"
"There, that's better."
Lu Ze snickered — then turned around, expression going cold.
"No thanks."
He walked back to where he'd been lying down, picked a foxtail grass from the ground and stuck it between his teeth, watching Farfetch'd train.
"Hmph!"
Angola glared at Lu Ze, frustrated.
If only I could just release Dragonite and crush him!
The thought flashed through her mind. Angola's eyes lit up — she hurled Dragonite's Poké Ball into the air.
"Go, Dragonite!"
Whoosh—
Dragonite had already heard everything Angola said while cooped up in its Ball.
So the moment it appeared, Dragonite put on its fiercest scowl.
But a Dragonite that was inherently goofy trying to look fierce? No matter how you looked at it, the result was pure comedy.
Sui Yan and Fugui beside it were already doubled over laughing, barely holding in their sounds.
Chirp~
Huh?
Dragonite: (‵▽′)/
Brothers, there's one more chapter tonight. Don't forget to read it~
(End of Chapter)
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